KAPAA — Just days before Christmas, someone decided to play the part of The Grinch at the Friendship House in Kapaa, stealing two big sections of the property’s Norfolk pine trees.
The evergreen trees are a popular decorative plant in yards, grow wild in some areas on Kauai and are known as “Hawaiian Christmas Trees.”
Friendship House has several of them, and they’re special enough that the members decided not to even decorate the trees and to instead buy a little one to celebrate the holiday season.
Wednesday, though, a few Friendship House members realized one of their 12-foot trees was half its usual size. That particular tree was split into two at the top, so two chunks of the tree were missing.
“Who steals a Christmas tree?” said Friendship House Director Terry-Ann Moses. “Someone has a nice, probably-six-foot tree now, and they took one for their friend, too.”
Friendship House, as of Wednesday, hadn’t reported the incident to Kauai Police Department, but did make a social-media post about the incident.
Moses said her first question was whether the act was premeditated.
“Did they drive by and happen to have a big enough truck with a saw, or did they see them and then come back with a truck?” Moses asked Thursday. “We’re just really thankful it wasn’t some of our equipment or something really big.”
It’s a reminder of Christmas 2018, when Friendship House had a break-in after the holiday.
During that incident, Moses said staff members arrived at Friendship House to see the decorations they’d just put in storage strewn all over the front yard and an intoxicated man cleaning them with a garden hose.
“Nothing was missing, the guy was just cleaning our Christmas decorations,” Moses said, laughing. “But our members had to clean up the soggy, wet mess.”
While Moses sees the levity in some of the break-ins and vandalism at Friendship House, she says it’s disheartening to deal with people squatting on their property, eating from their garden, breaking into tool sheds and stealing trees.
“We’re not a rich property, and Friendship House is a nonprofit that helps people with mental illnesses and addictions and things like that in this community,” Moses said. “You don’t have to help, but you don’t have to take, either.”
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Jessica Else, environment reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or jelse@thegardenisland.com.
blame the tourists. in addition to abandoning cars all around the island, you can be sure some of them cut these trees since their hotel room didn’t have a christmas tree.
They should have planted some paka lolo trees right next so the pine tree would not be touched.